Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Jeremy Clarkson naked under his purple nylon Y-Fronts shock

Jeremy Clarkson is in trouble (again) for making a joke. This time it's about the fact that burkhas don't necessarily mean the person underneath is wearing flat shoes and sensible knickers.

The Daily Star used this as a handy peg to hang a clip from Youtube on, and if you won't get in trouble for looking at lingerie adverts, you may care to click on the following.

What that scamp has done is to draw attention to the systematic subversion of the bukha. Instead of it being a symbol of modesty with the over-whelming liklihood of it concealing five spare stone of cellulite, trackybums and a pair of trainers, every copper and Clarkson is now going to be fantasizing wildly about the resurgence of stockings and suspenders under every black nightie.

Listen to Clarkson, Mr Hollobone. This is the way we deal with clothing we don't like. Mostly ignore it or else subvert the garment and re-engineer the semiotics of it. If the burkha becomes a symbol of uber-sexiness it will rapidly become fetish wear, if it hasn't already.

Those who wish to protect the honour of their good lady wives need not fret. The quickest, if ungallant, way to put other blokes off the idea of propositioning your missuses is to introduce them.

Call me a fretter here if you will. I don't really care much if women wear a burkha or not ... but I saw one being worn this morning as the woman concerned was hammering it along the motorway at 80mph. Now that did make me wonder about the wearer's wisdom.

My own view is that there is a sliding scale between countries with a majority of fit women who walk around as naked as possible (Sweden, parts of Europe) and countries where most women are ugly (Iran, Iraq) where they wear as many clothes as possible.

It's not really to do with Islam - in Indonesia the women are mostly quite cute and burkas and all this nonsense is very, very seldom seen.